Updated my reading list.

Not going to have read as many books this year, but then a lot of them were really thick, especially those Shadows Of The Apt novels.

It's been a good mix, if predominantly crime based novels.
I have got my sights set on reading more Fantasy novels & series especially, in coming months, but also a good number of SciFi novels and series.

I pretty much follow a list, but often switch things around or add something due to impulse, as the mood often takes me.

Much of what I read, is on the must read sooner than later kind of mental list, but a good number is based on whim or impulse. I am however, trying really hard to cut back on new authors, though I have (own) plenty of those not yet read.

I do have an issue that I now prefer ebooks, so even though I have plenty of physical books still to read for the first time, I just all too easily just read another ebook on one of my devices. And as I get older, I can only see that situation getting worse. Physical books take more effort ... weigh more, need to be held open, and need good lighting etc. Then perhaps the most important aspect of all, font size. Too many physical books, especially those published in the last 30 years, have almost microscopic print , in a crappy font and too often faint ink. And at 65 I am bordering on needing glasses to read many physical books.

Any particular reason why?
I still much prefer physical books, but in terms of font size, depends on format. Mass market paperbacks, absolutely, especially when a book's massive they'll try to cut whatever they can in the paper needed and use the smallest font and margins and separation they can get away with. But larger formats also have larger and better spaced text, and some books also have large print editions. Of course, there's quite a difference in price...

Because I've already got more, unread, than I am going to be able to read in my remaining lifetime.
So I've gotten to the point where I decided it was time, to just read what I have ... new books by authors I already follow, excepted. And in all truth I follow a hell of a lot of authors.

I've already cutback significantly, by no longer using BookBub now for several months.
I may still grab something new in passing, if it can grab me, but I won't deliberately seek such out or be too inquisitive.

My thirst for something new, has always outstripped my reading speed.

The problem for me, is that most of my physical books are indeed paperbacks and bought many years ago now. I stopped buying physical books altogether a couple of years ago, and in the few years before that I was only buying one each year from one author, who due to some specific circumstance drove me to swap to an ebook version anyway, and once I did that there was no going back.

Many of those paperbacks were clearly some kind of cheap run, and if I'd known that well enough I would not have bought them. But alas for several years before giving them up, I was buying them all from online stores. Of course, I wasn't reading most of them immediately after purchase, so with all online purchasing you take a gamble, especially with books that might have some kind of flaw (missing pages, etc). So I really only gave each book a brief check, not thinking too much about the font size etc, especially with my younger eyes then. Most of my local book stores did not stock the books I was interested in or charged a fortune for them.

My eyesight is still pretty good for my age. That said I've had to use magnification glasses a time or three, just to make it easier on my eyes and brain. The problem with those though, is the default distance is too close for my long arms, and thus uncomfortable.

Oh well, such is life.

P.S. I went through a stage, in the first few years I started reading ebooks, where I would only buy an ebook if it was standalone and not part of a series I already had physical books for. That eventually went by the wayside, as my preference for ebooks grew, and price sometimes became a factor. If anything, I probably regret not doing that sooner.

P.S.S. I'd love to re-read a lot of my books, but I doubt that will happen much now, especially with physical variants.

There is a nice adventure game inspired by this novel.

Also, if you haven't, you should watch The Expanse!

I think I have seen screenshots (which look great) before, but totally forgot about the game existing. Thanks much for reminding me. The Expanse I couldn't really get into, although I tried to like it.

"Little Women" (Part One), by Louisa May Alcott.

Not exactly my usual reading material, but even an old cynic like me found the stories around Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy really heart warming.
Just the right stuff for these cold winter days.
Of course, the moral lessons are laid on pretty thick and not very subtle, but I guess, that's "to be expected" from an 1868 novel.

The Ark Sakura by Kōbō Abe

A surreal tale of a recluse preparing for survival inside a vast underground quarry system, in case of a nuclear apocalypse. There's a bunch of strange supporting characters (some carry an air of hidden motives), and everyone has all sorts of weird reasoning for the actions they take. Prominently featured: a giant toilet.

I went into this with some concern, because I feared that I would find a similar nightmarish quality to this Japanese surrealist novel as was my experience with Haruki Murakami's work. I've read a couple of his books in the past, and they all left me with a certain level of unease. Since Murakami's flavor of storytelling isn't a good time for me, I'm long done with that author.

The Ark Sakura is different in that regard: the scaffolding here is more of an outlandish hilarity. I started to really enjoy the book when I began to move away from merely trying to decipher the underlying moral of the story, and sat with the inherent absurd comedy.

The Dromost Gate

This time around, the author does put a synopsis in the beginning, which can help even though it’s rather roughly done. But the real and truly surprising difference is that the focus is now moved well away from the action, making way for the worldbuilding that was avoided in Shadow of the Knight, and also for a fair amount of character development. The action scenes that do exist remain thrilling, but there’s much more to this book, which may be enough to paint Belen in more detail than Salador was so far, and to make the characters seem at least somewhat more like actual people, beyond their skills as warriors or magic users. And I also appreciated that actual depictions of what I tend to call the typical human filth have been largely avoided enough to not mind the fact that it was done in a rather shallow manner that harms realism.
On the other hand, there are no such justifications for finding that same lack of depth when it comes to, well, pretty much everything. Belen is supposed to be so diverse, yet there are barely a few characters that can be seen as individuals, the rest being utterly generic, and the masses almost laughably so. And the contrast between hedonism and prudishness was emphasized far too much, and the same might be said, at least to some extent, about religious fervor, and quite clearly about Ayja’s ignorance when it comes to sexuality. Plus that, while there are better moments, I’d still say that too much is told rather than shown. This still leaves The Dromost Gate as the best book in the series so far, but it also raises the bar, the author seeming to finally try to make that switch from action packed heroic fantasy to actual epic fantasy that he backed away from in the previous book, but not quite managing to get there.

Rating: 3/5

Same for me. Supposedly it ticks a lot of marks for me, but, IDK, after the first season, it seemed like enough was enough. I had read the first two novels, and half of the third. The first one was truly fun, especially since it became clear that the two writers had role played to create a few scenes, and the defects of tabletop RPing narrative made on the spot were apparent. In the second novel they had polished their technique, and the seams of the writing were less apparent. Still fun. But for the third book, it "fell out of my hands" after I had turned about three quarters of its pages. It felt less fun for me, at least (YMMV). I was reading these books for pure, raw fun of a modern space opera, not for literary beauty. So, since the fun factor failed, there was nothing left for me (again, YMMV, it is a very successful series of books and tv).

It really seems tough to find movie/TV sci-fi that I find worthwhile, a lot of material that's popular on a wide scale is not for me. Perhaps I should give The Expanse books a try.

Shame, shame on me! LOL! I absolutely need to finish reading my book before New Years pops its cork, just so that I can tell myself that I read one complete book in 2024 and broken my 2023 record. I truly envy you all! ;)

You can do it, there is still time :) Reading stamina tends to get better the more you are at it I think. I believe in you.

EDIT, just looking at my comment^ again: Jesus, watch me throwing 55$ terms around like reading stamina. Can someone make reading sound any more dry?

What I really want to say is that for myself I found real joy again in reading books this year, and that enjoyment grew to some similar level I remember I had as a child, the more I read. Along with already getting excited about the next book that I had picked out, while still not having finished the current one. Maybe it's a process, brains adjusting to slower gratification, a honing of focus, being content in the quiet, reading.

I beg to differ. Not to say it was a bad read, but Lestat's big move at the end was to literally do nothing after being a genocidal feminazi's whipping boy. The argument with said feminazi amounts to trying to explain to her the plainly obvious, that the horrors of the modern world are balanced with much progress; and ascribing all the good to Atheism (without saying the word) in spite of all the hospitals and universities founded by or medicines and technologies invented by Christians.

But reading a concrete origin to vampirism was nice.

The Emerald Gate

I’ll say right away that The Emerald Gate is the best book in the series, so it’s something of a pity that it marks its end. There’s worldbuilding, there’s character development, there’s thrilling action, there are multiple viewpoints presenting events taking place simultaneously in different areas, even in different worlds, there are developments and explanations about the magic system… I also made a mental note about the realism of presenting an army stretched over a long distance while on the march from the viewpoint of a character who’s not at the lead, but far more important was the one made about some of the hard choices faced by some characters, and in particular about those who are on the side of good but nevertheless realize that the ends do justify the means and do whatever’s required for victory, no matter the costs, the brutality or the moral dilemmas. And I also found a certain element of the ending particularly pleasing.
That said, the first part of the book does seem better than what comes once the action explodes, with the first, and probably worst, major moment when terrible means are employed in order to reach the necessary ends. From that point, the action returns to the forefront, so the way the army’s advance is presented, however realistic, does seem rather odd, and I’d have preferred the skipped action scenes resulting from that choice to make way for more detailed worldbuilding and character development. And, as pretty much always, I’ll also point out all of the instances of hero’s luck as a negative aspect… And then there’s the ending as well, which once again stretches on far too long and is something of a fairy tale, starkly contrasting the bleak, brutal realism that’s the rule until then. Yes, I did find particularly appealing elements in it, and other readers may welcome just that contrast in general and feel that the characters deserved such closure, but even so, it should have at least been far more compressed, while other parts of the book should have been expanded.

Rating: 4/5
Well, a lot of Rice's writing stems from her struggle with religion, breaking away from Christianity, then returning to it, then breaking away again...